


three libras

by deadlybride



Series: A Perfect Circle [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s04e07 It's the Great Pumpkin Sam Winchester, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, References to hell, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-27
Updated: 2017-01-27
Packaged: 2018-09-20 04:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9475688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: November 1, 2008. Dean gets ready for bed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A Perfect Circle - _Three Libras_ , track six of _Mer de Noms_

_Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed, and passed over_  
_when I've looked right through to see you naked but oblivious,_  
_and you don't see me._

Dean runs the water in the sink for a while until it finally gets hot, then plugs it and fills it about two inches deep. The bathroom in this place has the same bizarre purple-green-red color scheme as the bedroom, but at least the lights are bright—blindingly bright, almost, but maybe he's just tired. It's been a long, long day.

He scrubs shaving cream onto his face in a foamy-thin layer, swishes his razor through the steaming water. Slow scrape of the blades, clean cheek left behind in their wake. Swish, tap. He works slowly, methodically. In the other room the TV's on, low, and Sam might be sleeping, might not. He's not sure. They got back well after midnight, dodging the cop cars and the fire truck that had been screaming toward the flaming mausoleum, and—Sam saved the day. Dean knows that. If he hadn't done what he did, Samhain would've killed him and Dean too, climbed out of the graveyard and destroyed the town himself, and then what. Still. He hadn't been quite able to say anything, and Sam hadn't explained himself—had just stood there, blood trickling slow down his lip, hands lax after they'd ripped a demon out of a body, with just his mind, when it takes Dean hours and hours with a knife to bare the soul out of the bones—

Dean jerks, muscle shuddering without his say-so. A bright line of blood appears on his neck and he claps a hand over it, the soap stinging. He pulls away after a second and there's red smeared over his hand, over his throat. Razor's sharper than he thought it was. He runs his hand through the water, pinks it. The water's filmy white for the most part, scummy with soap, but the blood shines clear in it. He taps the razor on the side of the sink, looks himself in the eye—but turns his eyes toward the other side of his jaw. He's only half done. He sets the razor to his skin again. Scrape, swish. Tap. Again.

The TV sounds change, the blue light shining through from the other room flickering for a second. Sam must be awake, then. He hadn't protested when Dean went to shower, soon as they got back. He'd washed his face in the sink while Dean stood under the boiling-hot water, and for a minute there Dean thought the curtain would rattle back, that Sam would climb in and they'd try to wash the smell of sulfur off each other—but, no, the shadow on the other side of the curtain receded, and Dean was left alone to try to get the dusty death smell out from under his nails, to scrub the smoke out of his hair. He'd stood there and watched the water swirl down the drain, hot enough that it hurt, and he'd wanted to call Sam back. Wanted Sam's hands on his skin, nails digging in; wanted Sam to throw him down to his knees in the tub and fill him up, shove into him, to hook his big arm around Dean's chest and haul him into his place, hard and unyielding and hurting, anchoring—but Sam doesn't do that, does he. Not his Sam.

He tips his head back, cleans up the line on his throat, along the left side of his jaw. He doesn't meet his own eyes. Scrape, scrape. Tap. The TV channel changes, again—Sam's staying up, with him. On the right side of his throat there's a thin line of blood, now, carving a runnel for itself down to the hollow between his collarbones, pooling there with the leftover shower-damp, the steam and sweat. He scrapes away the last bit of foam and swishes the razor for the last time. Runs his fingers over his face to see if he missed anything. His fingers catch on the cut and it stings bright, singing, another little bloom of red seeping out and down, smearing over his fingertips. Hurts, a little. Almost enough.

He believed Sam, is the thing. Sam said that he hadn't wanted to keep the powers from Dean, but he knew they were wrong. He said that he wasn't going to use them again.

Dean's hands are shaking and he drops them both into the water, rinses the blood off the one and the soap off the other. It's hard to remember, sometimes. What to expect. When he dreams there's a Sam-thing that throws him onto his back, pulls open his guts and gets elbow-deep inside him and smiles about it, that whispers promises into his ear about what he'll do, if only Dean would just say yes—and then the eyes looking into Dean's go from brown-blue-green to a blank, hateful white, and Dean will remember, he'll remember he's supposed to say—he's supposed to say—

"Dean?" he hears, and he opens his eyes with a start. When he looks past himself in the mirror the reflection of Sam's sitting forward on the end of the bed, stripped down to his briefs and a t-shirt. He looks—soft, tired. Nothing more than Dean's little brother. He meets Dean's eyes in the mirror, speaks with his voice wrung-out low. "Come to bed?"

Asking, like Dean would know how to say no. He nods, a little jerky thing, and Sam bites his lips between his teeth, nods back, and then shoves back out of view with a rustle of blankets, the groan of old springs. Dean looks down and finds he's wrapped his hand around the razor, cut himself across the sensitive insides of his fingers in a sharp clean line. He uncurls his hand, stretches it out under the water, and the soap screams into the cut, that deep stinging agony as the insides are forced clean. The blood pushes out, sluggish, threading darker through the pinkish water, and he stares for a minute until he hears the TV turn off—Sam. Sam's out there, waiting.

He pulls the plug on the drain. Rinses the razor, runs hot water over his hand. It'll clot, if he stops messing with it. He balls some toilet paper into it while he runs the thin motel towel over his face, smearing away the last traces of foam, and water, and blood. When he's done, there he is in the mirror—washed clean, a little scraped-pink where he's not pale, his eyes standing out like a shock against his reddened eyelids.

He doesn't know how Sam hasn't seen it, yet. There's a reason Dean doesn't want him reaching for what's inside him. It's so easy not to let it go. So much easier than living with what comes after—to stay down in the dark, to keep going, because the wave that builds, that crashes over you when you stop, it's enough to drown a person.

He blinks away a flicker of black. When he uncurls his hand the toilet paper's red, but he's mostly stopped bleeding and he drops the wad of it into the toilet, flushes it away. He flicks the bathroom light off and walks over to the bed in the pitch-dark, drops his towel and climbs in naked, curling into warm space Sam makes for him. Sam sighs and puts a big hand over the back of his neck. Dean closes his eyes, tucks his head under Sam's chin. He folds his hands together, knuckles pressed against Sam's chest, and squeezes, tight enough that it stings.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](http://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/156430169783/three-libras)


End file.
